Guide shoes for elevators



Feb. 4, 1969 MINEJIRO JIN ET AL 3,425,516

GUIDE SHOES FOR ELEVATORS Filed July 1, 1966 F/G l. r

\ Ii I I 5 INVENTORS Iimsrrmo 37a! YuGa MnzuYnmn ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,425,516 GUIDE SHOES FOR ELEVATORS Minejiro Jin and Yugo Maruyama, Katsuta-shi, Japan,

assignors to Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, a corporation of Japan Filed July 1, 1966, Ser. No. 562,355 Claims priority, application Japan, July 12, 1965,

40/56,555 US. Cl. 187-45 4 Claims Int. Cl. B66 7/04 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE In general, an elevator car or cage has upper and lower pairs of right and left guide shoes arranged thereon and all of these four guide shoes are held in sliding engagement with the associated right and left guide rails to guide the elevator car during its up and down travel.

Recently, however, with increase in the operating speed of the elevator, there has been an increasing tendency of the elevator cage being subjected during its travel to lateral vibration due to the slight misalignment of rail joints, manufacturing and installing errors and other imperfections of the equipment.

Guide shoes conventionally employed on the elevator cage have generally included a slide member formed integrally with a pivotal support shaft. With such arrangement, the slide member can be held in good contact with the opposite side surfaces of the associated guide rail by its turning movement about the axis of the support shaft, but the contact between the front edge face of the guide rail and the bottom of the recessed groove in the slide member cannot always be held satisfactory. Thus, where the guide rail has any inclination to the vertical in a rightor leftward direction looking from the front of the elevator, or in the event that the elevator cage is more or less tilted to the right or left by an unbalanced loading of the cage, the groove bottom of the slide member apparently cannot make contact with the front edge face of the guide rail along the entire vertical length of the slide groove, but only makes partial contact with the rail edge at the upper or lower end of the slide groove and this tends to accelerate the wearing of the sliding surfaces.

In view of the above, the present invention is intended primarily to reduce the vibration of the elevator cage and also to reduce the wearing of the guide shoes.

The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate one embodiment of the invention and in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an elevator cage having guide shoes according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged illustration of one of the guide shoes fabricated according to the invention; and

FIG. 3 is a left-hand side elevation of the shoe assembly shown in FIG. 2.

Referring to the drawings and first to FIG. 1, there is shown an elevator cage 1 with a top and a bottom support frame 2 fixed thereto and each having a pair of right and left guide shoes 3 mounted thereon. The guide shoes 3 are identical with each other and each include a guide member 4, which is fitted to the adjacent one of guide rails 17 to guide the cage 1 in its travel.

Reference will next be made to FIGS. 2 and 3, which illustrate one of the guide shoe assemblies used on the cage of FIG. 1. As observed in these figures, the guide shoe assembly also includes a shoe base 5 adapted to be affixed to the adjacent support frame 2 on the elevator cage and a slide support 6 pivotally supporting a slide member 4 by means of a pin 7. Formed integral with the support member 6 is a rotatable or pivotal shaft 8 slidably fitted in a tubular sleeve or bushing 10, which in turn is fitted in a tubular casing 12 with a tubular body 11 of rubber or other elastic material interposed therebetween. The elastic tubular body 11 is designed to absorb any shock imparted to the pivot shaft 8 by way of the support member 6. A compression spring 13 is employed to hold the slide member 4 in pressure contact with the adjacent rail 17 and also to serve the shockabsorbing function in the direction indicated by the double-headed arrow 14 in FIG. 3. As shown, .the compression spring 13 is seated at one end on a pusher seat 16, which is adjustable in axial position by screw means 15 to adjust the compression of the spring 13.

In use of the guide shoe assembly, it will be appreciated that, if the slide member 4 is axially displaced in sliding movement along the guide rail because of some inaccuracy of the latter, the actual displacement of the slide as a whole or at its pivotal connection with the support member 6 is reduced due to the pivotal structure to one half of the otherwise occurring displacement of the slide member at one or the other end thereof and this apparently is effective correspondingly to reduce the resulting vibration acceleration.

The arrangement of the slide member 4, allowing its movement in various directions, is also effective to reduce the vibration possibly occurring when the slide passes over the rail joints (not shown). The cushioning effect of the elastic tubular body 11 serves together with the pivotal mounting of the slide member 4 to minimize the vibration possibly transmitted from the rail 17 to the shoe base 5. With such reduction in vibration, apparently the noise accompanying the vibration is also effectively reduced. Further, the inventive guide shoe assembly exhibits a feature that the wear of the sliding metal surfaces is also substantially reduced since, as described above, the slide member 4 is maintained in close contact with the adjacent guide rail 17 along the entire vertical length of the slide member even with an inaccurate rail arrangement and/or unbalanced loading.

Having described the construction and functional fea tures of one embodiment of the present invention, which employs a compression spring 13 to obtain an adjustable contact pressure between the slide member 4 and the adjacent guide rail, it is to be noted that the same purpose may also be served by utilizing the shearing stress of the elastic body 11.

To summarize, a guide shoe assembly is provided according to the present invention, which comprises a shoe base 5 adapted to be fixed to an elevator cage 1, a tubular casing 12 integrally supported by said shoe base 5, a tubular sleeve 10 supported in said tubular casing 12 in substantially concentric relation thereto through the intermediary of a body 11 of elastic material, a pivotal shaft 8 slidably fitted in said tubular sleeve 10 and carrying a support member 6 at one extremity of the shaft, and a slide member 4 pivotally supported on said support member 6 and adapted to be slidably fitted to a cooperating guide rail 17.

What is claimed is:

1. A guide shoe assembly for an elevator cage, moving relative to a stationary shaft having guide rails for each shoe, comprising: a shoe base fixedly attached to said cage; guide shoe means for sliding engagement in a first direction within a corresponding guide rail; relatively elastomeric means forming the sole supporting connection between said guide shoe means and said base, guiding said shoe means for relative movement with respect to said base means in a second direction substantially transverse to the direction of sliding engagement, and being stressed exclusively in shear during relative movement between said shoe means and said base in said second direction for dampening vibrations and shocks.

2. The guide shoe according to claim 1, wherein said guide shoe means includes a support and a guide shoe pivotally mounted on said support about an'axis generally perpendicular to said first direction and said second direction.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein said guide shoe means support is a cylindrical shaft; said guide shoe means include a tubular bushing slidably, rotatably and telescopically receiving said shaft; spring means mounted between said shaft and said tubular bushing for urging 4 said shaft axially toward the guide rail; said base including a fixed relatively rigid tubular casing; said elastomeric means being a cylindrical tubular elastomeric body attached to the interior surface of said tubular casing and attached to the exterior surface of said tubular bushing. 4. The guide shoe according to claim 3, wherein said spring means includes a rod extending axially outwardly from said shaft opposite from said guide shoe, a nut having a central bore therein threadably received within said tubular bushing in the end opposite from said guide shoe, said rod extending through said nut bore and having at least one position limiting nut adjustably screwed on its outer terminal end, and a coil spring concentrically arranged about said rod and in abutting engagement with said nut and said shaft.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,566,490 12/1925 Lundquist 187-95 1,899,751 2/1933 Dunlop 18795 2,601,503 6/1952 Cornish 187-95 EVON C. BLUNK, Primary Examiner.

H. C. HORNSBY, Assistant Examiner. 

